House Prices Up Again With Bright Spots In Detroit, Livingston County, Dearborn Heights, Grosse Pointe

DETROIT (WWJ) Sales of homes across metro Detroit continued to recover from the horrible declines of the Great Recession, climbing another 3 percent in June over the year prior.

It's great news if you're a seller, or thinking about selling, said Karen Kage of Realcomp.

Fewer foreclosures are really helping the market gain steam, experts say.

"You know  those foreclosure properties, we really needed to weed those out of the system because they were helping drive the prices down," Kage said.

And the numbers are even more impressive in some pockets across the region. Kage said sales in Dearborn Heights were up nearly 30 percent from June 2015.

The hottest county right now? Livingston County has a median price of about $285,000. Grosse Pointe remains an expensive area to buy a home, with a median price at $284,500.

The median price in Detroit is still very low, at about $24,000, but up from about $6,000 from 2009.

Prices are being driven by low interest rates and lack of inventory, with inventory down 18 percent year over year in Livingston County. The fewer houses there are to buy, the more you have to pay for them.

"Those properties coming on the market are selling probably not only quickly, but probably over the price that they're asking," Kage said.